New Orleans' latest streetcar expansion is headed to court after a group of wary residents sued Monday (Jan. 12) to halt construction along North Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue.

The group, which included property owners along the route, historic preservationists and members of at least two Indian tribes, demanded public transit officials and government agencies conduct in-depth studies of the project's impact on historic buildings, archeologically significant sites and street flooding in one of the city's oldest corridors.

Plaintiff Gordon Wilson said he hoped the lawsuit would reopen the project to broader public scrutiny to better understand any potential dangers it could cause. Officials with the Regional Transit Authority's private manager, Transdev, weren't immediately available for comment.

Crews began relocating underground cables and overhead lines after engineering plans for the project were finalized in December. Construction along the 1.6-mile route is slated to start later this month. The $41.2 million project is expected to be completed by September 2016.

But several residents argued at a recent public meeting that Transdev, the RTA and the project's contractor, Archer Western, had not done enough to assuage their fears that installing the tracks would endanger buildings along the edge of the French Quarter, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. They also worried that ripping up grass-covered neutral grounds in favor of widening concrete traffic lanes would exacerbate street flooding during southeastern Louisiana's frequent and dramatic downpours.

The anti-racism advocacy organization People's Institute for Survival and Beyond also joined the suit, along with Bring Our Streetcars Home Inc., a nonprofit formed by streetcar historian and critic of the project Jack Stewart, according to records with the Secretary of State.

The plaintiffs are demanding a "Section 106" review, which requires any federally financed or approved projects be studied with historic preservation in mind. They asked that the national Advisory Council of Historic Preservation, the State Historic Preservation Office and the Tribal Historic Preservation Office be allowed to comment on the project before it can proceed.

This could prove difficult because the Rampart-St. Claude line is being paid for with leftover money from a bond the RTA sold in 2010. There is no federal money involved in the project, public transit officials have said. But the lawsuit states the proposed spur is wrapped up in the RTA's overall streetcar expansion plan, parts of which did receive approval and transportation grant money from the federal government.

Plaintiffs also demanded the project be approved by the Federal Highway Administration, which they argue is obligated to weigh in on transportation projects that could have serious impact on historic properties. And thirdly, they want an environmental study to guard against any flooding the project could cause.

"I don't even think the federal government knows they have to conduct these reviews. I think they're going to be relieved that someone called their attention to it," Wilson said.